Kansas City Royals prospect Wil Myers might not have gotten his desired call-up to the big leagues this month, but he got a pretty significant honor on Tuesday.

Baseball America named the 21-year-old outfielder its minor league player of the year after he annihilated Class AA and AAA pitching in 2012. Myers hit .314/.387/.600 with a .987 OPS, 37 home runs and 109 RBIs while playing for Northwest Arkansas (AA) and Omaha (AAA).

Wil Myers is Baseball America's 2012 minor league player of the year. (AP Photo)

The Royals decided not to promote Myers as a September call-up, which has been common practice for the franchise as it has developed one of the game's best farm systems and brought up players systematically.

The reason for not calling up Myers, who played center and right field this season, is so the Royals wouldn't start his major league clock, allowing them to gain a season of control by delaying his arbitration eligibility.

When the Royals drafted Myers in the third round in 2009, they saw him as a middle-of-the-order hitter, but he had never had the run-producing numbers worthy of that distinction.

Until this season.

Myers tweaked his approach at the plate, standing more upright and taking bigger swings. It led to those big power numbers—24 home runs in 439 plate appearances in Class AAA—as Myers sacrificed his strikeout rate, which was around 21 percent over the previous two seasons but rose to about 24 percent this year.

The Royals will live with that since it led to Myers being second in the minors in homers. His previous single-season high for home runs was 14 in 2010. The most impressive part of that is Myers maintained his average despite all the strikeouts (140).

This season was quite a turnaround. He suffered through a disappointing 2011 in which he entered the season as Baseball America's No. 10 overall prospect. He hit .254/.353/.393 and his stock sank just a bit. He started this year as BA's No. 28 prospect.

After last season the Royals gave Myers an ultimatum: Go to the Arizona Fall League and get right or go home. He went to the AFL and raked to the tune of .360/.481/.674.

The Royals intend to invite Myers to major league camp next spring training, and not just for show. He is expected to compete for a spot on the opening day roster.